Day: November 10, 2011

November 17th, Faculty Club
12pm

The final Bancroft Round Table of the Fall 2011 Semester will take place at noon on Thursday, November 17^th in the Lewis-Latimer Room of the Faculty Club.  Misfortune has struck, and our scheduled speaker, Jeff Lustig, is unfortunately unable to join us due to an unanticipated health problem.  On very short notice, noted local historian and author Philip Fradkin has offered to present a talk in his stead.  We hope that Jeff will be able to give his presentation on Californias second constitutional convention at a later date. We are grateful that we had an accomplished Bancroft scholar to speak in his stead.

Philip will talk about his recently published book, Everett Ruess His Short Life, Mysterious Death, and Astonishing Afterlife. Everett Ruess was twenty years old when he vanished into the red rock canyon lands of southern Utah, spawning the myth of a romantic desert wanderer that survives to this day. It was 1934, and Ruess was in the fifth year of a quest to find beauty in the wilderness and record it in works of art whose value was recognized by such contemporary artists as Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, and Edward Weston. From his home in Los Angeles, he walked, hitchhiked, or rode a burro up the California coast, along the crest of the Sierra Nevada, and into the deserts of the Southwest. Seventy-five years after Ruesss disappearance his bones were supposedly discovered in 2009. Misguided journalism led to bad science and erroneous DNA results. In the first probing biography of Everett Ruess, acclaimed environmental historian Philip Fradkin goes beyond the myth to reveal a troubled, idealistic adolescent who flirted with death and lost, and finds in the artists astonishing afterlife a lonely hero who persevered.

The campus community is invited to join us at this talk and learn more about a talented young man who, had he lived, might have been a noted California artist and poet and whose grandfather, William H. Knight, worked for H. H. Bancroft and Company.

October 20th, Faculty Club
12pm

The second Bancroft Round Table of the fall semester will take place at the Faculty Club at noon on Thursday October 20.  Malcolm Margolin, publisher of Heyday Books, will share his thoughts and experiences in a talk entitled “It’s Still Fun: An Inside Look at Small Press Publishing.”  Because we anticipate a substantial crowd we are grateful to have the Seaborg Room as an alternate location for this event.  Please be aware that the Seaborg room is up a flight of stairs. It is located at the western end of the Faculty Club, directly above the bar.

Founded in 1974, Heyday is one of the finest small presses in the nation and has worked in collaboration with Bancroft on many of our publications.  An independent, nonprofit publishing house, Heyday is a unique cultural institution. It has played an essential role in creating the widespread current awareness of California’s many cultures, landscapes and boundary-breaking ideas.  Through well-crafted and beautiful books, public events, and innovative outreach programs Heyday has become a pillar of Bay Area intellectual life.

Malcom Margolin a legend in his own right.  This is a special chance to hear the inspirational and imaginative man who made Heyday what it is speak about the craft that he knows so well.  The community is cordially invited to join us at Malcolm Margolin’s talk.